Share this story

When PopCap underwrote studies on the cognitive benefits of playing casual games with East Carolina University (ECU), it never imagined that the research would inspire the exploration of casual game projects for military use. But the principles PopCap helped examine in those studies are the basis for several projects which could lead to the development of new training aids and in-theater medical diagnostic tools for the United States Armed Forces. And it all began with a bit of fan appreciation.

Back in 2006, PopCap Senior Director of Public Relations Garth Chouteau decided to conduct an informal survey on why fans enjoyed PopCap games. “I started to receive the occasional e-mail or call from customers, and being the inquisitive PR person that I am, I would generally take that opportunity to ask them why they liked the games, what they liked about the games,” Chouteau told Ars. “After getting enough of those comments to the effect of ‘These games, they help me relax,’ ‘They seem to make my mind sharper,’ or ‘They provide some type of mental exercise,’ I said to myself, 'We need to understand if this is broadly true. We need a bigger sample.'”

So PopCap hired a company called Information Solutions Group to conduct a formal survey of just over 1,000 customers, asking if they derived any benefits aside from entertainment out of playing PopCap games. "Stress relief was something that three-quarters or more, I think it was 77 percent specifically, chose,” said Chouteau. “And I believe it was 81 percent who cited cognitive exercise.”

PopCap then reached out to departments at multiple universities in the hopes of sponsoring a more rigorous study to understand these effects. Dr. Carmen Russoniello, professor and director of the Psychophysiology and Biofeedback Lab at East Carolina University, gave the most enthusiastic response. “He had a lot of experience in various types of recreational therapy, and he was intrigued by the idea,” said Chouteau.

Having fun is healthy

Russoniello’s research is inspired by his experience asa recreational therapist. His dissertation was conducted at an inpatient alcoholic treatment facility, where he tested the hypothesis that stress-reduction ought to be measurable physiologically. To prove that hypothesis, experimental groups were assigned tasks that required different amounts of oxygen to perform.

“What we found was, not only psychologically did these people report that they felt better, but we could see biochemical changes that were significant between the groups,” he said. For example, the groups that conducted less strenuous activity had lower levels of cortisol, a hormone released in response to stress.

“I was looking for ways to measure these same kinds of activities, which led me to biofeedback, and it turns out that I could use it for intervention as well as to measure the effects of other things on people, which is one of its real benefits,” said Dr. Russoniello. “I can hook you up and see if it works. It really has an advantage of being able to quantify an outcome of a stimulus, like an activity.”

An activity like playing casual video games, for example.

Less stress, better mood

The first PopCap-sponsored study at ECU was titled “A Randomized, Controlled Study of the Effectiveness of PopCap Video Games in Reducing Stress and Improving Mood.” The researchers measured the heart rate variability (HRV) and alpha wave activity among experimental subjects who were given a choice of playing Peggle, Bejeweled, or Bookworm.

“HRV tells you about a thousand times more than your pulse,” said Russoniello. “One of the first things the students notice when someone’s hooked up to HRV is that their heart rate vacillates. Like when a nurse takes [a pulse] and says that it’s 72, it’s actually 72, 68, 80, 69, and that’s important, that variability.” According to Russoniello, heart rate variability can be predictive of depression, anorexia nervosa, and diabetes, among other conditions, and it can also be used to measure stress levels.

As for alpha waves, measuring their strength in both the left and right sides of the brain and measuring the level of synchrony between the hemispheres can measure mood variances such as depression or mania.

Analysis of alpha wave and HRV data from the experiment indicated that the experimental group that played the games exhibited fewer signs of depression or anxiety than a control group. Some of these variances were dependent upon the subject's gender or which game was chosen, suggesting to Russoniello the idea of prescribing specific games to specific patients in order to achieve desired results. The researchers determined that more study was needed.

Casual games as mental health prescription

In addition to another set of lab sessions, the experimental group was instructed to play a casual video game of their choice at home for at least 30 minutes three times per week, with at least 24 hours between each session, for a month. Their post-study scores on the standard nine-item depression scale of the Patient Health Questionnaire demonstrated statistically meaningful reductions in depression symptoms.

Subjects also took a self-administered psychological assessment of mood called the Profile of Mood States, which showed that anger, depression, fatigue, and confusion were all reduced by at least 50 percent in the experimental group. Anxiety levels were also reduced.

The third study being underwritten by PopCap is currently underway and will drill down further into the results of the second study by looking at how casual games might be used in combination with other therapies to combat clinical depression. ECU is also conducting studies into the effects of casual games that are separate from the PopCap-sponsored research. The preliminary results of one of these offshoot studies suggest that playing casual video games can improve a person’s ability to make decisions and respond quickly to a stimulus.

The sum total of the experimental results from all of these studies convinced Russoniello to move forward with proposals to the Department of Defense for military applications of casual game play (though he stressed that these are still just proposals and that there are no projects currently underway with the DOD).

The concept of using casual games for military training purposes is not new. One of Russoniello’s research partners, Dr. Vadim Pougatchev, was involved in just such an initiative in the Soviet Union.

“In the late 80s I was part of the project to develop a special computer program to provide neurocognitive assessment and training for high-risk operators,” Pougatchev told Ars. “This program was implemented in the form of a simple game called Captain Nemo. It appeared that this program was also used to train Soviet Air Force and Navy personnel. Later we found out that besides military pilots, candidates to cosmonauts were trained with it.”